Book 3 of Isaac's Story: London is out with the Advance Reader Group, and I'm nervously waiting for them to come back to me and tell me how much it sucks. Because that's how the writer brain works.
This series was always about my future London, an enormous place filled with technological marvels and millions of small stories. It's how I think of actual cities I've visited: we see the large picture - the whiz bang, the shiny - but the place isn't defined by that. The distinctive feel every city has when you roam the streets is built of those small stories, the daily interactions between normal people.
The guy going to work oblivious to the world, stepping over someone blind drunk from the night before. The guy is late on his rent and his relationship is tanking. The drunk was celebrating a fantastic result to a risky deal. Maybe he's a drug dealer, or a trader.
An electronics shop opening the security gate first thing in the morning. Staff are tired, bleary-eyed, already looking forward to closing time. They never look up at their city anymore, and so don't see the photography studio that just opened across the street, or the model sitting topless in the second floor window on her smoke break.
A terrorist attack rocks the city. The citizens pause for a few minutes as they work out an alternate route to work to avoid the confusion.
These are the stories that give these places their personality. Depending on where you are in the city, a street can go from sleepy and quiet to hectic and loud in the space of a few minutes, and empty out as quickly. Other cities seem to never stop; go out at midday or 2 in the morning and the street is equally crowded. Only the outfits have changed.
For Book 3 I wanted to take someone who wasn't numb to the city yet, an outsider arriving for the first time. Kris grew up in a fundamentalist town, a compound closed off from the world. He has very little knowledge of the London he's about to discover, and I wanted to see the world through his eyes. He gets to see the world from the point of view of the average person, and also sees it from the heights of the most powerful.
Along the way - of course - there are noble murderous cyborgs (the best kind), genetically altered humans with tails, a blimp, explosions, conspiracies, and a longing for things that can no longer be.
Here's the cover:
This series was always about my future London, an enormous place filled with technological marvels and millions of small stories. It's how I think of actual cities I've visited: we see the large picture - the whiz bang, the shiny - but the place isn't defined by that. The distinctive feel every city has when you roam the streets is built of those small stories, the daily interactions between normal people.
The guy going to work oblivious to the world, stepping over someone blind drunk from the night before. The guy is late on his rent and his relationship is tanking. The drunk was celebrating a fantastic result to a risky deal. Maybe he's a drug dealer, or a trader.
An electronics shop opening the security gate first thing in the morning. Staff are tired, bleary-eyed, already looking forward to closing time. They never look up at their city anymore, and so don't see the photography studio that just opened across the street, or the model sitting topless in the second floor window on her smoke break.
A terrorist attack rocks the city. The citizens pause for a few minutes as they work out an alternate route to work to avoid the confusion.
These are the stories that give these places their personality. Depending on where you are in the city, a street can go from sleepy and quiet to hectic and loud in the space of a few minutes, and empty out as quickly. Other cities seem to never stop; go out at midday or 2 in the morning and the street is equally crowded. Only the outfits have changed.
For Book 3 I wanted to take someone who wasn't numb to the city yet, an outsider arriving for the first time. Kris grew up in a fundamentalist town, a compound closed off from the world. He has very little knowledge of the London he's about to discover, and I wanted to see the world through his eyes. He gets to see the world from the point of view of the average person, and also sees it from the heights of the most powerful.
Along the way - of course - there are noble murderous cyborgs (the best kind), genetically altered humans with tails, a blimp, explosions, conspiracies, and a longing for things that can no longer be.
Here's the cover:
I'm looking forward to hearing what people think.
I'm off to write. Go read a book.
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